Inconsistencies with re-branding?

It's no denying that broadcasters sometimes can't keep a consistent portfolio of branding across all its outlets, but it's actually pretty rare for it to work the opposite way, where certain services of a broadcaster; (children's, radio and prime-time) are actually given a brand new look, right before a company undergoes a complete brand overhaul.

CITV brought back in-vision continuity with a brand new logo and set in May 1998; a mere 5 months before the "blue-and-yellow" ITV logo was introduced the following October. But that's not all, Daybreak had its final look in September 2012, 4 months before the massive ITV corporate refresh in January the next year. This might be a slight coincidence, but it does make me wonder if ITV treats CITV and Good Morning Britain like shows, rather than the integrals for the company's outlet; (CITV for children's programmes and Good Morning Britain for news and topical affairs) and why they've chosen to brand those strands first, rather than at the height of the company itself undergoing a huge corporate makeover.

Last edited by BeanosOnToast on 2 August 2017 6:26pm - 2 times in total

CITV didn't use the corporate logo, so in this case if was irrelevant.

In fact up until I think 2004 CITV didn't use anything corporate style at all, I don't think it even went wide-screen until well into the new millennium though all its programmes had been wide-screen for ages. It was only after 2004 with a handful of exceptions the credits for many CITV shows fell into line with the rest of the network.

It's also important to remember that CITV was produced by Central/Carlton Central - who themselves were not completely on board with the generic ITV look (even rejecting the idents from the package!). By that time in 1998 the rebrand was well into it's development, Carlton were very resistant to the ITV Network Centre look and wanted their own brand image.

It may just have been that they wanted CITV to have its own brand image. What is interesting is that video pre-dates CITV sharing a space with Central News West (when they were in a broom cupboard, CN had a large studio.

CITV didn't use the corporate logo, so in this case if was irrelevant.

In fact up until I think 2004 CITV didn't use anything corporate style at all, I don't think it even went wide-screen until well into the new millennium though all its programmes had been wide-screen for ages. It was only after 2004 with a handful of exceptions the credits for many CITV shows fell into line with the rest of the network.

Similarly I think CBBC's studio links were 4:3 with programmes going out in 14:9 until Studio 9 went widescreen with the 2001 mini revamp. IIRC this was despite the studio being widescreen capable from the start, and the 1997 idents were produced in widescreen (as can be seen here: https://youtu.be/82AUCISLuHo?t=28m32s )

That was secondary to this one, with that one only used to bookend the block:

Been mentioned before in other threads, but Calendar, Anglia News, and Granada Reports all had revamps that only lasted months before getting overridden by the first ITV News regional generic graphics in 2004. Yorkshire TV's 1999 local idents were also meant for full time use and supplanted by the hearts - Granada axed a rebrand for the same reason and Tyne Tees's went ahead but was also only used for local programmes, despite a logo change.

Sky Sports 3's first ident lasted only one month before the second tombstone idents launched.

Even after BBC1 and 2 got their corporate makeovers in February 1991, it wasn't until that September when Children's BBC and BBC Video finally adopted the corporate branding. Notice how even when they had the old ident, the Broom Cupboard actually got a fresh new look, which was obviously done to prepare for the September revamp, it does make me wonder if they did actually have the ident ready, but for some reason, it had to be delayed for the Autumn. It was so strange seeing the new BBC1 and 2 logos, when CBBC didn't even have their own corporate look ready, which adds to my point about whether or not the Children's strand was treated as a show, rather than an integral part of the schedule.

And as for BBC Video, turns out the corporate "sombre piano" ident actually debuted in late 1990, one of its first uses was on this BBC promo from the summer of 1991;

Yet BBC Video STILL used the COW ident right until CBBC got their rebranding in September, and starting in late 1990, the last tapes to use the COW logo had the BBC logo appearing on the front cover, and a new tape label was introduced to mark this change, yet the earliest tapes to use the piano logo didn't have the BBC logo on the front..

The CBBC 1991 revamp was clearly held over until the start of the new school year. I also wouldn't breathe too much into the broom cupboard design - even once they started getting them properly set designed, they rarely/never coincided with actual changes in the branding. The summer 1991 example doesn't actually have anything in common with the September 1991 ident at all when you look closely (the neon rings aren't based on the ident, they are fairly abstract) and they stuck with that design until early 1993. It just seems to have been changed when they fancied a change. A great example was the long-running competition to design a broom cupboard - the hand punching through a wall design that run debuted around easter 1994 for a whole 3 months before they binned the broom cupboard forever!

That BBC logo was introduced in 1987 but not used on air regularly until 1990 and not in the channel logos till 1991.

But then things weren't consistent in the past, it's a relatively new concept.

Yeah it's strange how slow it appeared- it was on some regional news titles and BBC Sport in 1988. And with copyrights at the end of the show it appeared inconsistently- there's a small handful of shows in 1989 using the logo, though the only one I've seen from that year with the copyright date in the corporate font that was used until 1997 was Bob Says Opportunity Knocks. A few other examples using the new logo in 1989 were Pebble Mill shows, and it appeared on the relaunched Breakfast News from October too (both with a non-standard font for the copyright date though).

And even when it started appearing regularly on copyright dates in 1990 it wasn't consistent- for example Top Of The Pops switched to the new logo & copyright strap from the first edition of 1990, but there's some shows from much later in the year still using the 70s/80s logo & copyright font (I've seen it on O-Zone editons from August 1990), and there's even a few post-1990 examples, like 1991 episodes of Playdays and the 1993 series of Maid Marian And Her Merry Men!